Satisfactory Assets Extractor

An unattended pipeline that keeps a data + icon set for the game Satisfactory in sync with Steam. On a schedule it detects new game builds, extracts the shipped documentation and icon textures, normalizes them, and hands the result off to a co-located API.

It runs headless on Linux (developed against Ubuntu Server 24.04).

What it does

For each branch (stable / experimental), once per run:

1. Detect - query Steam for the current build id (anonymous, no login).
2. Download - steamcmd-update the game client for that branch.
3. Version - read the human game version (e.g. 1.2.3.1) + engine version from the install.
4. Docs diff - locate the Docs file and skip the rest if it hasn't changed.
5. Parse - run the satisfactory-tools/docs-parser package (once per variant: default and -ficsmas), producing the item / recipe / building / schematic data and the list of referenced icon textures.
6. Extract - pull those textures out of the UE5 pak files with CUE4Parse and normalize each to 256×256 and 64×64 PNGs.
7. Content-address + dedup - name each image by a hash of its contents, so identical icons are stored once and unchanged images are never re-uploaded.
8. Rewrite + publish - replace every icon reference in the parsed data with its image id, wrap it as { "data": …, "metadata": {} }, and drop the images + versioned JSON into the API's data directory, then trigger the API import. The API decides whether the build joins the current SFTools version (only cosmetic changes such as icons, names or descriptions - plans keep working) or starts a new one (anything the planner uses changed). That decision, the planner changes behind it and the command to override it end up in the notification.

State (per-branch build id / docs hash, published image ids, run history) lives in MariaDB. Runs are locked per-branch, guarded for disk space and extraction failures, and report success/failure to a log file and (optionally) Discord.

Architecture

Three cooperating components, decoupled by a CLI + JSON/file contract:

Component	Tech	Role
orchestrator/	PHP 8.5 (Symfony Console)	The pipeline: version check, download, docs diff, publish, state, scheduling, notifications. Shells out to the other two.
extractor-net/	.NET 10 + CUE4Parse + SkiaSharp	Decodes UE5 textures and writes normalized PNGs + per-asset content hashes.
docs parser	satisfactory-tools/docs-parser (Composer)	Parses the game Docs into structured data. Driven as a console command.

The heavy lifting that must be .NET (CUE4Parse) is isolated in extractor-net/; everything else is PHP.

Repository layout

orchestrator/     PHP orchestrator (bin/extractor, src/, config/)
extractor-net/    .NET image extractor (Program.cs, Extractor.csproj)
systemd/          systemd units
data/             runtime working dir (git-ignored): downloads, artifacts, images

Requirements

• Linux, steamcmd, a Steam account that owns Satisfactory (the Docs + icon paks ship only with the game client, not the free dedicated server)
• PHP 8.5 (pdo_mysql, curl, iconv) + Composer
• .NET 10 SDK/runtime
• MariaDB or equivalent
• Ample disk (~30 GB per branch for the game install)

Setup

Run everything below from the repository root unless noted.

1. Build the components

# PHP orchestrator (installs the docs-parser package + Symfony)
cd orchestrator && composer install && cd ..

# .NET image extractor
cd extractor-net && dotnet build -c Release && cd ..

2. Create the database + user (MariaDB/MySQL)

sudo mariadb <<'SQL'
CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS sf_extractor CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
CREATE USER IF NOT EXISTS 'sf_extractor'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'change-me';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON sf_extractor.* TO 'sf_extractor'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
SQL

3. Configure

cp orchestrator/config/config.example.yaml orchestrator/config/config.yaml

Edit orchestrator/config/config.yaml (it's commented throughout). At minimum set:

• database.* - DSN / user / password matching step 2
• steam.username - the Steam account that owns Satisfactory
• extraction.dotnet - path to the .NET 10 runtime (e.g. dotnet) and extraction.dll - path to the built extractor-net/bin/Release/net10.0/Extractor.dll
• publish.api_data_dir - where the co-located API reads data + images
• paths.data - working dir for downloads/artifacts (needs ~30 GB per branch)
• (optional) notifications.discord.webhook_url for success/failure pings

Then create the state tables:

php orchestrator/bin/extractor db:migrate

4. Steam login (one-time)

The Docs + icon paks ship only with the game client, so downloads need an owning account. Log in once interactively so steamcmd caches the session (later non-interactive runs reuse it):

steamcmd +login <username>    # enter password + Steam Guard, then `quit`

5. First run

php orchestrator/bin/extractor run --branch=stable

6. Schedule (hourly systemd timer)

systemd/sf-extractor@.service is a template - copy the units, then edit the three CHANGE_ME/placeholder lines in the installed service to match your host:

• User= - the account that owns the cached steamcmd session + .NET runtime
• WorkingDirectory= - absolute path to this repo's orchestrator/
• ExecStart= - the php binary path if it isn't /usr/bin/php

sudo cp systemd/sf-extractor@.service systemd/sf-extractor@.timer /etc/systemd/system/
sudoedit /etc/systemd/system/sf-extractor@.service   # set User=, WorkingDirectory=, php path
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now sf-extractor@stable.timer   # instance name = branch

(You can instead edit the copies in systemd/ before cp - either works.) Only stable is scheduled by default; add experimental (disk permitting) with systemctl enable --now sf-extractor@experimental.timer.

Commands

php orchestrator/bin/extractor check                        # new build? (no credentials/download)
php orchestrator/bin/extractor run --branch=stable          # run one branch
php orchestrator/bin/extractor run --branch=all             # both branches (default)
php orchestrator/bin/extractor run --branch=stable --force  # ignore the "unchanged" check
php orchestrator/bin/extractor db:migrate                   # create/verify state tables

check needs no Steam credentials and works even before the DB exists (it just skips the comparison). run requires the DB.

Operating the scheduled unit:

systemctl start sf-extractor@stable.service      # trigger a run now
journalctl -u sf-extractor@stable.service -e     # the last run's logs
systemctl list-timers 'sf-extractor@*'           # next scheduled run

Failures are written to notifications.log_file and (if configured) a Discord webhook.

License

MIT - see LICENSE. Copyright (c) 2026 greeny.

Credits

Built on CUE4Parse, SkiaSharp, and satisfactory-tools/docs-parser. Not affiliated with Coffee Stain Studios.